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Lost Classics: Writers on Books Loved and Lost, Overlooked, Under-read, Unavailable, Stolen, Extinct, or Otherwise Out of Commission
 
 
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Lost Classics: Writers on Books Loved and Lost, Overlooked, Under-read, Unavailable, Stolen, Extinct, or Otherwise Out of Commission [Paperback]

Michael Ondaatje (Editor), Michael Redhill (Editor), Esta Spalding (Editor), Linda Spalding (Editor)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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Book Description

August 21, 2001
An Anchor Books Original

Seventy-four distinguished writers tell personal tales of books loved and lost–great books overlooked, under-read, out of print, stolen, scorned, extinct, or otherwise out of commission.

Compiled by the editors of Brick: A Literary Magazine, Lost Classics is a reader’s delight: an intriguing and entertaining collection of eulogies for lost books. As the editors have written in a joint introduction to the book, “being lovers of books, we’ve pulled a scent of these absences behind us our whole reading lives, telling people about books that exist only on our own shelves, or even just in our own memory.” Anyone who has ever been changed by a book will find kindred spirits in the pages of Lost Classics.

Each of the editors has contributed a lost book essay to this collection, including Michael Ondaatje on Sri Lankan filmmaker Tissa Abeysekara’s Bringing Tony Home, a novella about a mutual era of childhood. Also included are Margaret Atwood on sex and death in the scandalous Doctor Glas, first published in Sweden in 1905; Russell Banks on the off-beat travelogue Too Late to Turn Back by Barbara Greene–the “slightly ditzy” cousin of Graham; Bill Richardson on a children’s book for adults by Russell Hoban; Ronald Wright on William Golding’s Pincher Martin; Caryl Phillips on Michael Mac Liammoir’s account of his experiences on the set of Orson Welles’s Othello, and much, much more.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Writers, it's often said, are readers first and writers second. Frequently, it is the indelible mark left by some book that inspires a person to commit to the writing life. Mining that vein, the editors of Brick, a Canadian literary journal, asked their contributors "to tell us the story of a book loved and lost." The "Lost Classics" issue has been expanded into a book, in which 73 authors--Margaret Atwood, Russell Banks, John Irving, Philip Levine, Anchee Min, and Michael Ondaatje among them--write about the books they've loved and lost.

These are books worth stealing, books remembered in the twilight that precedes sleep, books that, for these authors, provided "that moment when a reader seems to have found the perfect mate." Though many of the books extolled here are acknowledged classics, many are not. Helen Garner cherishes a childhood book that "except for members of my immediate family, no Australian I've mentioned the book to ... has had any knowledge of it whatsoever." Sarah Sheard writes lovingly of Down and Out in the Woods: An Airman's Guide to Survival in the Bush, "a manual of food, shelter and first aid [that] was the companion text of my childhood summers." Michael Turner reminisces about a book he never actually read, and Erin Mouré describes a book about the history of fishes that "no one I knew was ever interested in reading." Anne Holzman laments her inability to find a copy of a book for lefty activists called Reweaving the Web of Life (hint to Holzman: check online--used copies are readily available). And Nancy Huston introduces Kressmann Taylor's Address Unknown, "a perfectly astonishing [and prescient] little book." A kind of Rand McNally for the literary explorer, each chapter a hand-forged map leading down bookish roads less traveled. --Jane Steinberg

From Publishers Weekly

In Lost Classics: Writers on Books Loved and Lost, Overlooked, Under-read, Unavailable, Stolen, Extinct, or Otherwise Out of Commission, assembled by Michael Ondaatje, Michael Redhill, Esta Spalding and Linda Spalding (editors of the Canadian literary magazine Brick), 74 writers honor books that hang in the world by a thread, if at all. Contributors include the editors; Margaret Atwood on Hjalmar S”derberg's Doctor Glas, which caused a scandal in Sweden in 1905; Anne Carson on Dhuoda's Handbook for William, dating to the 840s, wherein an exiled wife imparts "[t]actics of survival... in this world and the next" to her hostage son (whom she never saw again); and Robert Creeley on David Rattray's How I Became One of the Invisible, "an extraordinary record of... the last of the fifties."

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


Product Details

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Anchor; 1st Anchor Books ed edition (August 21, 2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0385720866
  • ISBN-13: 978-0385720861
  • Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,581,530 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

 

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Conversation, January 7, 2002
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This review is from: Lost Classics: Writers on Books Loved and Lost, Overlooked, Under-read, Unavailable, Stolen, Extinct, or Otherwise Out of Commission (Paperback)
The act of reading has been mistakenly called solitary. It is all about dialogue and this book has it in spades. Michael Ondaatje and fellow editors from Brick Magazine, a literary journal, invited over 70 past contributors to submit essays singing the praises of lost, long-ago, out-of-print or underrated books that mattered. In other words, it is a collection of love stories, all personable and short. It is a delight on several levels: not only does it suggests some good-sounding reads, it also introduces some interesting reader/writers, many of them Canadian who do not get enough recognition in America.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Books Remembered but Misplaced or Lost!, November 24, 2001
This review is from: Lost Classics: Writers on Books Loved and Lost, Overlooked, Under-read, Unavailable, Stolen, Extinct, or Otherwise Out of Commission (Paperback)
Reading allows us to learn things from others, to experience things we might not ever experience in our own lives, and to go places we wish we could but may never have the chance to. We can go back in time or travel to the future and experience worlds we haven't experienced before. After reading this book I thought of many books I too have lost and misplaced from my earlier years of reading, and wished I had kept, or perhaps not given away. It would be nice to be able to re-read them again, if only they were still in print.

This is a wonderful collection of almost 75 essays, by some of the world's best writers brought together by the editors of Brick: A Literary Journal, that are thoughtful, funny, interesting, witty, and heartwarming. There is such a diverse selection of writers here that there are bound to be several essays for everyone to enjoy.

Jim Moore's essay on "The Salt Ecstasies" by James White who died in 1981 was very inspiring. Jim's poetry is very familiar to me for this was one of the first gay books of poetry I read while coming out. Luckily I still have a first edition copy of this book. Reading this essay inspired me to re-read Jim's poetry once again, and experience the passion & love that he visualized in his poetry for so many of us. Colm Toibin's essay on "Forbidden Territory" by Juan Goytisolo, who was an acquaintance of Jean Genet in Paris in the 1950's, is a tribute to this wonderful Spanish writer. Colm is a fascinating Irish writer himself who has written two wonderful books, " The Heather Blazing" and "The Blackwater Lightship" (See my earlier reviews).

Please don't miss Javier Marias' Afterword. This is writing at its best; intelligent, informative, funny, and touching. The telling of his experience in a bookshop in England, and how the owner was such a fanatical collector that he had a hard time parting with & selling his books is unforgettable. If you love and cherish great books like I do, don't miss this collection of essays. There's something for everyone here. Only one inquiry from me, why isn't this book in hardcover for our collections. Highly recommended!!

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars superb!, February 23, 2010
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Caraculiambro (La Mancha and environs) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lost Classics: Writers on Books Loved and Lost, Overlooked, Under-read, Unavailable, Stolen, Extinct, or Otherwise Out of Commission (Paperback)
As of my writing, there are 57 of these available in Amazon stores for a penny each. Usually when I see this it's a sign that a book was a major dud and should be avoided.

I don't know how this book did saleswise, but I love it. I read it from cover to cover.

I've lent out two and they weren't returned, so I've had to buy a third.

And I owe this book two debts of gratitude:

1. Turning me on to some amazing books that would never have crossed my radar before (e.g., "All About H. Hatterr").

2. Making me less embarrassed about those few volumes I treasure but nobody else has ever heard of (e.g., Alexander Key's "The Magic Meadow").
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